50 Comments

General CommentI think it has something to do with a diplomat and his family living in a Caribbean or South American country in the early eighties. They have a family of locals who run the house for them, and the daughter of this local family befriends the young son of the diplomat. As they get older their friendship develops into something more, and the diplomat's son wants to sleep with the girl. But in reality this girl has been plotting to steal from the family and hadn't really thought of her friend in that way, but now that he seems to be coming onto her, she is reconsidering. So she is torn between her plan to steal from the family and run or to have this one night stand with the diplomat's son. In the end she gives into her desires and smokes pot with him and then sleeps with him, but then she wakes up to find her best friend gone. And then, and here's where I'm really speculating, the boy's family finds out and his parents are disgusted, the boy probably blames the local girl for seducing him. And that last verse finds her at her house in the town or village or whatever on the river in the winter, watching as the diplomat's car drives by and regretting her missed opportunity and the fact that she let her desires overtake her rationality. And it could even be a larger metaphor for the way the US "seduced" these tiny Caribbean/ South American third world nations into forming economic "partnerships" (i.e. sleeping with them) in order to take their resources, when the country (the girl) would have been better off just managing their own resources (the girl taking her chance to steal from the family.) Or I could be totally off base and reading way too much into it haha. But the album is titled Contra, and VW has made hints that these types of ideas are a part of their thematic approach to this album, so you never know. But that's just my take on it, I'm interested to hear what others have to say.

Your analysis helped me figure out what in the world Ezra was singing about haha but I'm afraid it's probably not a girl who Rostam is referring to. If you go to this website: afterelton.com/people/2010/02/… , you will find out that Rostam describesÂ the song asÂ aÂ "six-minuteÂ dancehallÂ songÂ aboutÂ aÂ gayÂ relationship." With this being said, the rest of your analysis may or may not be true. I like to think it IS because it makes sense =)

After Rostam's comments, it is clear that it is a gay relationship that the song is referring too. Looking back at the lyrics this actually makes much more sense- lines such as "I know you'll say, I'm not DOING IT RIGHT" become much more illuminating. But as far as the rest of my analysis, I think it still holds and in fact the 'daughter' of the local family being a 'son' only strengthens the argument, with the 'never having a feeling I could offer that to you' making much more sense in this context. This local son is curious, to say the least, about his friend the Diplomat's Son, and when the son starts to make some sort of advances toward him right as he's planning to make his move and steal from the family, the son of the locals can't resist his temptation. He "smokes a joint" and "[finds himself] in bed" with his best friend, Simon, AKA the Diplomat's Son. When he wakes up, Simon is gone, possibly having been discovered by his father the Diplomat, and Simon tells his family that it was the local boy who seduced him. The local family is cast out from the house and the narrator never gets his chance to steal from the family. The parallels to the US seducing the Caribbean/Latin American countries still stand.

Dressed in white with my car keys hidden in the kitchen
I could sleep wherever I lay my head

And the sight of your two shoes sitting in the bathtub
Let me know that I shouldn't give up just yet

^^Those are the lines I struggle the most with. I think maybe its him being sexually tempted towards sleeping with his friend (dressed in white, I.E. a virgin, at least with boys, wanting to do it) but also seeing his "two shoes sitting in the bathtub" for him to clean, perhaps, makes him realize that he is always going to be the servant boy unless he takes action and this "let['s him] know that he shouldn't give up just yet" on his plan to steal from the family, even though he now has this new option to sleep with his friend. The "car keys hidden in the kitchen" part i can't quite decipher though. Any thoughts on how this could fit into my interpretation?

I can't offer anything in the way of an interpretation of the car keys, except maybe as a symbol of his initial freedom, but I am very fond of your take on the song in general. Thanks to G1635A for bringing up the point I wanted to make! The imagery of the song really reminded me of the relationship between the two young men in Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN.

Yeah, "the car keys hidden in the kitchen" could be like the keys that symbolize his freedom; like the keys he's hiding to the car he'll take to run away once he escapes. Which is why he "shouldn't give up just yet".

i think sam71191 is mostly right. it is a direct reference to the 'contra' uprising in Nicaragua that started in 1979 when the Sandinistas over-through the 43 year long Samozo dynasty. Carter tried many tactics to help smooth the transition or balance the power. It wasn't until 1981 when Reagan took office and cut Nicaragua off financially (The Sandinistas were semi socialistic, a red herring at the time... pun intended). This completely destabilized the area. It took Nicaragua 9 years to reach a balance of power. I think the clash clearly referred to this and so does VampWknd. There are many ways to interpret the lyrics but I bet their main goal was to draw attention to Reagan's tactics, which led to a lengthy civil war.

While I am not one to push artistic interpretations of music onto others I see this song having another meaning not relating to the lead singers life at all. I find that it mirrors a case having to do with a murder case. I cannot remember specifics but I just remember it had to do with a blonde girl who went out to the carribbean with her friend when she was about 18. While she was there they two men, one's father was literally a diplomat. Hence he was a diplomat's son... The man drugged the girl to get in bed with her but, he ended up killing her afterwards. His friend was involved as well. Now to connect this to the song its all in the details. If you notice the first two lines are almost desperation. It'now or never suggests he either will drug her or miss his chance. Then he mentions the moon with the riptide. The man dumped the body after he had killed her into the ocean. It then leads into the bridge before the chorus again its addressing the now or never issue and he mentions offering something to her. This could be a wide array of things mainly I think he means sex before shes even drugged because this may lead her to think hes interested in her when all he "wants to do is use" her. He mentions her in saying that hes doing it wrong but he wants it this way. This means he might force sex onto her but it doesn't matter. Then the going back to how he felt before part might suggest he might have killed her and its too late to turn back now or it may mean he cant go back to feeling remorseful for offering her sex. The part about the joint and his friend match exactly what had happened to the man who actually committed the crime because when he was interrogated for it they could not find his friend anywhere. The night he committed the murder was the last night they saw each other and the last time the man was ever seen. Then when it comes to the part about the ice cold water and traces of the other place I think it refers to after he dumped the body he could no longer feel the same he was a changed person from there on. Then the wind blowing off the river causes a current which might mean he'd be caught. The car comes in at the end because after the murder his dad the diplomat was able to stop him from getting sent to jail. If you notice the music has a very island feel as well which sets the theme. It also is happy which seems sarcastic to the lyrics and at certain parts you get caught up in the clatter of iron bars which almost takes you along the path of insanity and fear the man felt after murder.

General CommentEzra is not gay, but Rostam admittedly is (Rolling Stone Feb. 4 2010), and, seeing as he collaborated on these lyrics I was under the impression that this entire song was from a homosexual viewpoint, considering all male vocals + singing about a son, w/ no mention of anything hinting at a female perspective(besides maybe the cha chaing in the beginning).

Some of the lyrics seem to back this up also...

"I know, you'll say
I'm not doing it right
but this is how I want it" (3:30)

and the way Ezra pronounces this verse in particular is wonderfully flamboyant...

I'm not sure if that was the intention of this song, but it makes me like it even more.

General CommentSorry for the double post, but here are the Rolling Stone excerpts that scottfer mentioned:

(…) Batmanglij is also gay, a fact he’s never really discussed publicly. His friends have knows since college, but he didn’t come out to his parents until about two years ago. (Asked how they handled the news, he laughs: “My dad went to Brtisish boarding school. You don’t get much gayer than that.”) A self-described homebody, he was in a pretty serious relationship last winter, but they split up a few weeks into the recording of the album. “I tried everything to have him back,” Batmanglij says. “He broke my heart”.
(…) Take “Diplomat’s Son”, which is inspired by that boarding-school story Koenig wrote. The original is an angry parable of class tension and resentment that culminates in a bloody beat-down on a soccer field. Batmanglij took it and made it a love story. “After you leave college, the world opens up,” Koenig says. “For this record, I wanted there to be songs that everybody could understand.” (…)

Song MeaningI agree with scottfer this song seems to be coming from a homosexual perspective. I also assume to the 'take it from Simon' is a reference to Paul Simon. I was theorizing (perhaps mistakenly) that the reference was to "50 Way to Leave Your Lover". Linking the idea of 'ducking out' out to 'slip out the back, Jack' and perhaps the reference to keys hidden in the kitchen to 'Drop off the key, Lee.'

Sandinista, you absolutely NAILED it. It is definitely Joe Strummer (whose father was indeed a diplomat). The song's style is distinctly in the vein of 1981 Clash and the MIA sample is the dead giveaway, who sampled "Straight to Hell" for her biggest hit. Great great great post, buddy! Enlightening.